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Subject: Re: Strongest new program releases

Author: José de Jesús García Ruvalcaba

Date: 05:41:53 11/11/00

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On November 10, 2000 at 12:42:00, Christophe Theron wrote:

>
>Yeah, sure.
>
>One question: did it ever happen that a program that has been rated number 1 on
>the SSDF had been found later to be clearly weaker than its peers?
>

I think it has not happened, but for the moment I am unable to check the the
past rating lists.

>
>I don't remember it happened.
>
>But I remember that it happened often that an inferior program won a
>tournament...
>

But how inferior? Clearly weaker? I do not think this has happened either, as
all the top programs are very close in strenght.
Not so long ago, Crafty won CCT-1; while Junior, Shredder 3 and Nimzo were
playing. I am ready to accept that these three programs are stronger than
Crafty, but I think the difference is not big.

>
>You could as well say that as you don't attend the tournaments yourself you
>don't trust the results. Maybe they are not sincere...
>

Actually I believe that several soccer games are fixed (the same for other
professional sports), but I do not have that problem with current computer chess
tournaments (I read in some old magazines that there were fixed games between
entries of the same companie, Fidelity).

>
>It is even worse in tournaments. Have you followed the last WMCCC? There were
>very weak programs allowed to compete, and this has caused some unfairness and
>polemics.
>
>It WOULD be possible to bias the result of the SSDF by a big cheat on the choice
>of the opponents, but it would be very obvious, everybody would notice it.
>

I am not sure how obvious it would be.

>
>They
>are not doing that. The list of opponents of a given program is always
>published.
>

I believe that are not doing that on purpose, but the list can be accidentally
biased.

>
>Can you find cheats in the choice of opponents and point them out?
>

No.

>
>>
>>And I personally would not like to get one (unless Katja Riemann or Claudia
>>Schiffer write a chess engine, even if it plays weak chess).
>
>
>Here we have a strong point of agreement. Actually I don't know who Katja is,
>but I trust you blindly! :)
>

Katja Riemann is the most famous German actress! If you do not know her, then
you MUST run to the nearest video club and rent some of her movies (:
(but she only plays German movies).

>
>I think it would be better for you to simply say that you religiously believe in
>tournaments.

Ok. I religiously believe in tournaments.
And you religiously believe in private testing and the SSDF in particular.

>
>All the arguments you can provide to belittle the value of the SSDF
>actually can be used to point out the weaknesses of tournaments results...
>

All but the secret vs public games. In tournaments, all games are public. It was
not my intention to belittle the SSDF, I believe that do a terrific and useful
job, only that I do not pay too much attention to their results.

>
>    Christophe

José.



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